Welcome to a semester of thinking about how humans do things with words. There is never a shortage of material. Just pay attention and listen! There is fodder everywhere for our analytic enterprise: the election, the university, our friends, (hypothetically) our enemies, our families; advertising; entertainment. As anthropologists, we turn our eye to the world around us, paying attention very carefully to the surface (what words were used, what technology was employed), to the underlying meanings (why did this person say this on this occasion?), and to the connections with forces and institutions outside this particular moment (how does power swirl through the identities and goals each person demonstrates?). Connect to all potential contexts but also give a close look.
Many great thinkers have weighed in on these matters, and we'll see where we stand on their positions and how we can advance our own understanding.
I look forward to learning with you for these four months.
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